Twenty four hours after going scoreless in his senior national team debut, Giannis Antetokounmpo gave his Greek fans plenty to cheer about on Saturday.
Starting alongside Greek star forward Kostas Papanikolaou, Giannis connected on 5/9 field goals to finish with 11 points and seven rebounds in France's 81-73 win over Greece (box score), and in the process he reminded us of the damage he can do with the ball in his hands. Watch his gorgeous P&R finish above and then re-watch a mighty similar looking play he pulled off last month against the Spurs in Vegas.
All five of Giannis' field goals came at the rim on Saturday, the first a transition dunk plus foul, followed by his P&R finish and then later in the first half a baseline spin and-one finish out of the post. He was a bit quieter in the second half, scoring on a pair of putbacks to finish with 11 points in 28 minutes of action. Either way, consider it a promising effort against a solid French team that--even without Tony Parker, Joakim Noah and Boris Diaw--featured seven players with NBA experience. Papanikolaou paced the Greeks with 18, and hopefully from here on out we'll see Greek coach Fotis Katsikaris give Giannis more opportunities to play next to Papanikolaou rather than just back him up.
Greece closes out their weekend back-to-back-to-back against Croatia tomorrow at 11 am CT.